Former Royal Oak principal guilty of embezzlement

School officials say the district is ready to move on now that former Royal Oak High School principal Michael Greening has pleaded guilty to embezzling money from funds for student activities at the school.

ROYAL OAK -- School officials say the district is ready to move on now that former Royal Oak High School principal Michael Greening has pleaded guilty to embezzling money from funds for student activities at the school.

In a plea deal Tuesday, Greening, 46, pleaded guilty to a single charge of embezzling from $1,000 to $20,000 before Oakland County Circuit Judge Shalina Kumar, while a second embezzlement charge was dropped.

School board President Gary Briggs said Greening's guilty plea puts an end to a case that started a year ago when top school district officials confronted Greening about the missing money in a meeting.

"He admitted to us in a meeting that he took the money," Briggs said. "If his admission (in court) had come a year ago it would have saved a lot of time and money for people in the community."

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Briggs added that Greening also failed to discourage a number of parents and students who supported the popular principal in the erroneous belief he was innocent as the case wound its way through the courts.

"He allowed it to play out for almost a year," Briggs said. "The positive thing is that this thing is finally over ... and we have learned from it. I'm glad we can now put this behind us and hire a new principal."

"Our internal investigation, the work of external auditors, the police investigation, and the prosecutor's office all came to the same conclusion," Superintendent Shawn Lewis-Lakin said in a statement. "Mr. Greening's admissions of wrongdoing and his guilty plea move us toward final resolution."

The embezzlement charge carries a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment, along with paying thousands of dollars in fines, costs and restitution payments.

However, as a first-time offender Greening could get anything from probation to up to six months in jail under sentencing guidelines. He is scheduled to be sentenced before Judge Kumar at 10 a.m. Jan. 22.

Prosecution witnesses in August laid out much of the case against Greening in Royal Oak 43rd District Court during a preliminary examination. Greening opted to take the plea deal rather than face a jury trial in circuit court.

Police said they learned that Greening faced mounting personal debt in 2010-11 when he was accused of taking more than $15,000 in cash from funds for student activities that he oversaw at the high school.

Greening and his wife bounced 196 personal checks in 2010 and 131 checks in 2011, investigators testified. Records showed the couple also owed more than $47,000 in credit card and other revolving credit debt in addition to their home mortgage payments.

Cheryl Goodgine, human resources director for the district, earlier testified that when officials confronted Greening he retrieved $860 in cash from his car and admitted his handling of the activity accounts "was a nefarious idea" and that he had done damage to the school district.

Interim Principal Jim Moll has been in charge at the high school since January 2012 and will continue through June 2013. The school district next month will begin its search for a new permanent principal, Lewis-Lakin said.